"Complicated"

Here's a stream-of-consciousness post about how life, humans, sports teams, sports icons like Jim Brown (R.I.P.), music icons—most heroes, or heroic institutions, are rarely uncomplicated

I just heard that my dad’s favorite football player growing up, Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns, passed away.

I’m looking around for the book I got Dad for his birthday one year, a long time ago, that I thought for sure I kept. I always thought I’d read it someday, and now I can’t find it. I think I may have donated it in an unmindful household purge.

But it was called When All the World Was Browns Town. It covered an era that I’m sure seems improbable—impossible, even—to younger sports fans these days: a time when the Cleveland Browns were by far the best team in professional football.

And Jim Brown was the primary reason for that. The Sporting News called him the greatest football player ever, many publications have called him the best running back ever, and in their statement today, the Browns owners called him “certainly the greatest to ever put on a Browns uniform.” And that last one is pretty inarguable.

He was also revered as an activist. He gave up football at the height of his career, initially because he was still shooting the classic WWII film The Dirty Dozen when training camp started and straight-up chose finishing the film over the rest of his football career. But he also said he wanted to concentrate on social activism, too. And unlike some athletes or other stars who claim to hold that intention, Brown actually did it.

(Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive via The Guardian)

The famous assemblage shown above was a 1967 meeting of famous athletes at the Negro Industrial and Economic Union, where they gathered to talk out Muhammad Ali’s (then Cassius Clay’s) stance on rejecting being drafted into Vietnam. It was called the “Cleveland Summit.” That front row, especially, is somethin’ else: NBA greats Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) on the ends, with Clay and Brown in the middle.

These athletes were and always will be seen as important figures in the civil rights movement of the Sixties. But historically, Brown was never really aligned with guys like Kareem, it turns out. I always thought of him as operating within the same world as MLK with his activism, but that’s not the case. He did a lot of great work alleviating gang violence…and he also supported Richard Nixon and (infamously, along with Kanye West) Donald Trump.

So, he was a complicated guy. And unfortunately he was a violent guy, on and off the football field. He was arrested a number of times for, but never convicted of, multiple instances of violence against women (and one instance of violence against a golf partner).

I don’t really remember Dad talking much about Jim Brown after I was, I don’t know, 10 or so. It was likely because we moved from Ohio to Indiana and became Colts fans, for the most part. But I think the fact that Jim Brown was so complicated a post-football figure took the shine off his childhood hero quite a bit, too.

And he never did read When All the World Was Browns Town.

The more I read about, and write about, and research American politics and interrelations and tribalism, and try to plot ways I could bring dissimilar folks together with dialogue, to show that we’re not so different after all (Kumbaya my Lord, kumbayaaaaaaa), the clearer it becomes: the mess we find ourselves in when it comes to American gridlock is soooooooooo complicated.

And, in any conflict, I always want to settle on the perfect tactic that will result in the perfect solution. But that often doesn’t ever come to pass—and it certainly isn’t going to come to pass anytime soon when it comes to American division. That doesn’t mean we can’t stop the bleeding, though, and put ourselves on a (likely very long) path to healing…

But the problematic legacy of Jim Brown reminds me of the Michael Jackson and Ryan Adams conundrums (conundra? Conundrae?). Adams is undeniably enormously influential to the current Americana/folk/indie/rock scene that has become really significant in the music industry (especially here in Nashville). And Michael was the King of Pop.

Nobody can dispute these two facts about these two artists, just like nobody can dispute that there’s a lot of evidence that suggests these two dudes suck/sucked. Allegedly (and by the way, Jim Brown’s abuses were alleged as well), they both used their status as stars to entice women (Adams) and children (Jackson) into intimate scenarios they had no intention of getting into.

[I mean…it’s much more complicated than that, obviously. But it’s Friday and I’m getting tired of writing and you all know what I mean.]

But the question comes up all the time: do you still listen to their music?

For me, it’s impossible to completely cut Michael’s music out of my life. Perhaps it helps that he’s passed on and can’t (allegedly) hurt any more young kids. But…he’s just too seminal an artist quit entirely.

Ryan Adams, I really really like (music-wise). But he’s still on probation with me. I feel like he would have to do more than just successfully refrain from (allegedly) luring impressionable young women into unwanted and/or unhealthy romantic scenarios. He would actually have to repent. And I may be wrong, but I don’t remember him doing much repenting…just retreating from public scrutiny.

That said…if somebody played a song of his at a party, it’s not like I would leave the party.

However. Growing up, there was a musician who I loved probably twice as much as I’ve ever loved Michael and Ryan put together, but I haven’t listened to a song of his in maybe a decade. Or more. He was the fifth act I ever saw live—he opened for Kiss at my third-ever concert. And I saw him a bunch more times after that (although I never went to a show of just his, he was always opening), and saw him a few times as a member of Damn Yankees, too.

You’ll have to forgive me: when I was 12, it was not a red flag for me that his new album at the time was called If You Can’t Lick ‘Em…Lick ‘Em, and featured a young, perspirey lady in boxing gloves and not much else collapsed suggestively against boxing ropes.

In fact, I’d say it was pretty decisively a checkered flag.

(I guess the numbskull title of another of the songs on the album, “The Harder They Come (the Harder I Get),” was too long to be the title of the album?)

But no, I can’t listen to the Nuge anymore. He’s not just politically unsavory; he’s proven over the years to be just an abysmal dude all the way ‘round, politics or no politics. And that hurts. Because he meant a lot to me growing up. Indeed, this man’s prose served as a landmark development in my path toward puberty. He introduced me to the term “poontang” with the song “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang.” And while there was no Internet to tell me what poontang might be referring to, I somehow instinctively knew it was something to keep an eye out for.

But I swear, I have not heard a Ted Nugent recording in at least a decade.

Now…have I let my guard down and played the solo to “Cat Scratch Fever” once or twice? On the electric guitar I got around the same time I talked my mom into buying me a tape called If You Can’t Lick ‘Em…Lick ‘Em? Because it’s one of only 2.5 solos I know how to play on electric guitar?

Eh, maybe. But maybe not. But definitely maybe.

[The other solo I can play is Kiss’s “Firehouse.” The solo I can play up until it gets fast is Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.”]

Back to sports real quick to close.

The NFL’s Washington Commanders franchise was sold recently after tons of problematic stuff was unearthed about their owner and the inner-workings of the organization.

But one of the ongoing issues that got as much press as anything else was the fact that the team had only recently been renamed the Commanders after spending most of its history as the Washington Redskins.

If I remember correctly, the franchise paid for a bunch of polling of the Native American community to see if the name really and truly offended them. And the feedback was…mixed, I think the pollers said? (Sorry that I’ve stopped researching and fact-checking these statements, but…Friday.)

Regardless, the team also polled fans, and all this was done under threat from the owner that they would never ever change the name as long as he owned the team. (Cool dude!) And then all the other findings of sexual discrimination and other crappy crap came up, and eventually he did allow for the name change (and was still forced to sell the team, so…the stuff that happened that I’m not inclined to look up must have been pretty bad. Allegedly).

In contrast, baseball’s Cleveland Guardians changed their name from the Cleveland Indians with somewhat less fanfare. “Cleveland Guardians” looks very, very strange to me, but then again, so did the Washington Commanders. And now when I see “Washington Redskins” and “Washington Commanders” next to one another…it’s “Washington Redskins” that looks kinda weird. Hopefully the Guardians name will catch on too, and who knows—maybe some other problematically named teams will see that the change is do-able and will follow suit (lookin’ at you Chiefs and Braves!)

But most importantly, there’s not a hideously insulting slur serving as the mascot of a pro football team anymore. Nor is there the below cartoon mascot, modeled after “Little Black Sambo,” representing a Major League Baseball team:

Eeeesh.

And yet, even with the above being so gross, and me being 100% supportive of changing the name of any team that uses a marginalized community to inspire a mascot, it only occurred to me recently that I, myself, was supporting the same kind of disrespect to Native Americans as the Cleveland MLB team used to support—by wearing my favorite t-shirt.

Oh, it was a great shirt, it went with a lot of stuff and was true vintage and was promoting a Triple-A baseball team, which is kinda cool and rare and under-the-radar. But the team it was promoting is called the Indianapolis Indians:

That’s a pic of the actual shirt. So when I realized this presented something of a problem, I did stop wearing it. It sat in a dresser drawer for a few weeks, until I decided I’d finally donate it. But then I thought, well, I don’t want anyone else promoting a team called the Indians, either. So I pitched it.

It’s still in my trash can, actually. I did the pitching just a few days ago. I guess it took so long because…I just really liked the shirt, and the logo wasn’t that offensive, was it? And…and…

I mean, the Washington Redskins logo looked quite dignified, too (especially compared to Cleveland’s “Chief Wahoo” above), but the fact remained that a large contingent of Native American folks were offended by it. To me it doesn’t matter if their community’s overall sentiment was “mixed.” A bunch of Native Americans wanted a name change. And if you take the emotional charge of being a fan of the team out of it, I mean, c’mon now—any fan could see why it would be offensive. So the right thing was for it to go. Suck it up and go buy some Commanders merch.

Well, then I guess Notre Dame needs to get a new mascot, too, huh?? The Fighting “Irish??” They’re named after an ethic group, tooooo!!

Well, first, their mascot-mascot is technically a leprechaun, and leprechauns have no civl rights at all as far as I’m concerned. They are awful little creatures who have done exactly zero good for society and we should persecute them every chance we get, as hard as we can, because they deserve it.

But anyway. No Irish people give a shit that Notre Dame’s mascot is named after them. And that’s because Irish people are not marginalized. So it doesn’t offend them. Because it’s not a hearkening back to the fact that their ancestors were wiped out in a mass genocide, basically.

Now, I realize Irish people definitely were persecuted in America, and not that long ago. But somehow we were a little quicker to stop being prejudiced against Irish folks in this country than we were with Native American people.

But hey, fair’s fair. If a movement of Irish folks suddenly starts to bubble up, and a bunch of pale redheads start protesting against the Fighting Irish’s nickname, then let’s change that, too.

Yours,
~Dean

P.S. I’m a sixteenth Cherokee and otherwise Irish, so I’m OK to make the pale redhead joke, right?

P.P.S. Oh and at one point in my life I could play the solos to “Hotel California” (well, one of the harmony solos) and “L.A. Woman!” I totally forgot about playing those in my college band.

P.P.P.S. And I can play Alice In Chains’s “Would?” solo, too. Man, maybe there are others, too. Oh! Definitely the solo to Kiss’s “Heaven’s on Fire” I can play. But that’s just Paul Stanley playing it, so…let’s see, what else…….